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1.1.10-Safe-is-relative
Brick!Club 1.1.10 or the chapter in which I start to dislike the bishop for his own ideas rather than just for being clueless to the ladies’ suffering To start, "For at heart he shared the general impression and the conventionist inspired him, he knew not how, with that sentiment which is the fringe of hatred, and which the word ‘aversion’ so well expresses." "but a conventionist he looked upon as an outlaw, even to the law of charity." Really Myriel? You’re the person who could see the good in an actual outlaw who was ravaging the countryside but one man who stood up for his beliefs and was living alone, shunned by everyone else, its him that you can’t bring yourself to extend kindness towards. "he who had laughed so heartily at ‘His Highness,’ was still slightly shocked at not being called monseigneur, and was almost tempted to answer ‘citizen.’" Okay, now you’re just being petty. Plus, (I’m pretty sure) monseigneur is an honorific given to religious authorities and you know that this man is an atheist so why would he recognize that authority by using monseigneur? "I mean that man has a tyrant, Ignorance. I voted for the abolition of that tyrant. That tyrant has begotten royalty, which is authority springing from the False, while science is authority springing from the True. Man should be governed by science." "And conscience," added the bishop. "The same thing: conscience is innate knowledge that we have." I love that Hugo pointed out that atheism is not necessarily to be without a conscience; that atheists can still have an innate sense of morality. "Ah! you are there! ‘93! I was expecting that. A cloud had been forming for fifteen hundred years; at the end of fifteen centuries is burst. You condemn the thunderbolt." Its been quite a while since I took ap history so I don’t really remember what happened in ‘93 and I have very limited internet right now so I would definitely appreciate an explanation. The conventionist resumed: “Oh, Monsieur Priest! you do not love the harshness of the truth, but Christ loved it.” I really like that Hugo is explicitly telling us how, yes, the bishop is very Christ-like but he is flawed in at least one important way. "Inexorable, yes," said the bishop. "What do you think of Marat clapping his hands at the guillotine?" "What do you think of Bossuet chanting the Te Deum over the dragonnades?" I get that this was a big argument that shook the bishop but I do not know who either of these people are so it kinda loses its weight. "Monsieur, forget not this; the French revolution had its reasons. Its wrath will be pardoned by the future; its result is a better world. From its most terrible blows comes a caress for the human race." "Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, this is recognised: that the human race has been harshly treated, but that it has advanced." I just love this guy so much and love the connection the Amis. Lastly, "The infinite exists. It is there. If the infinite had no me, the me would be its limit; it would not be the infinite; in other words it would not be. But it is. Then it has a me. This me of the infinite is God.” I do not understand what this means at all. Commentary Pilferingapples To oversimplify hugely on the answers to your questions (bunniesandbeheadings, forgive me this grotesque summation of a very complex era): 1793 was the year the French Revolution went to its Bad Place (the Terror), Marat was one of the power players in the Revolution, and Bossuet— the one being referenced here, not our sarcastic bald barricadeer from later in the book— was a royalist with a rather nasty streak. Really recommend doing some supplementary reading on them all when you’ve got your internet back, they’re fascinating! And would have been pretty familiar to the readers of Hugo’s day. He’s actually NOT being obscure here. Margolotta (reply to Pilferingapples) Am I the only one who finds the conventionary G’s defense of the Terror less than convincing? So basically he listed some worst offenders of the French Revolution and compared them with some people who commited atrocious religious persecution? Does he imply that the Terror is excusable because it’s been done before or that the Terror is about religious freedom? Because neither makes much sense to me. I found Enjolras’ reason much more reasonable: “As far as the immediate means were concerned, a violent situation being given, he wished to be violent.” p.s. The chinese translator titled this chapter “The Bishop Visits a Unknown Philsopher”, which is an interesting choice for “lumière.” Pilferingapples (reply to Margolotta's reply) That is a peculiar choice of terms. Not nearly as poetic… I would suggest that G’s defense of the Terror isn’t actually defense of *the Terror*, but of the Revolution that the Terror eventually became part of. He’s saying ‘yes, this was appalling, but these things always happened, and IN THIS CASE, it was done in the name of the Revolution instead of God or King.” Which, you know, if we’re going to start throwing down who did what in the name of what cause, the Bishop has some reason to be concerned based on timelines alone. Also I think G’s defense draws on what Mark Twain later talks about with the Big Terror and the Little Terror— the centuries and milennia of oppression and terror and capital punishment in the name of divine rule, vs. the few years of The Terror with the Republic. He’s saying the Terror was BAD, but it was the inevitable result of all those years of small-t terror before— the Revolution was an attempt to move away from that cycle, and it it was not successful, then it was still more unique for the attempt than for not succeeding. Artificialities (reply to Pilferingapples' reply) The way I interpret G’s defense is that it’s not so much a defense of the Terror per se, as a defense against the Bishop’s assumed moral judgment of the Terror as a horror beyond other atrocities of recent history. ”Yes, that happened, and it was indefensible,” he’s saying (as I read it), “but don’t pretend that atrocities committed with good intentions by people who think virtue is on their side is anything unique to the Revolution. You aren’t judging all Christians or all royalists by these other atrocities; what gives you the right to hold me to a different standard because some were committed in the name of the Republic rather than God or the king?” The Bishop is usually good about being benevolent towards everybody, but he’s getting caught up in worldly political loyalties and bitterness here, and it’s making him kind of a hypocrite. Which is something I love, as a reader, because it makes him a human being instead of a plaster saint! But G is calling him on that, and Myriel has no good defense against that charge. He’s humbled and ashamed by his own human pride and foibles, and it’s that that makes him kneel to G.